Whether one does X is often of little significance; “Why” it is done, and to what extent, is quite another matter. The past – whether of long ago, beyond the time of memory holding presently or of history being read about, or the past of one’s own kept in sequestered moments of reflective thought and in photographs carefully guarded and encased within a protective album of shelved remembrances – is a time behind; the future, an angst-filled uncertainty few of us look forward to.

It is the present, and how we treat it, spend it, work it and waist it away or labor furiously to appear “productive” about; and then, there are ruminations on the past.

That is where the “why” and the constant obsessions begin to overwhelm – of what we could have done differently, where we “went wrong” and what lessons can be gleaned for today. Ruminating on the past is a favorite pastime for many; but when it begins to destroy the future by robbing from the present, it is time to set aside such wasted efforts and begin to focus more upon one’s current situation in order to prepare for the future.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the time to set aside ruminations on the past is “now”.

Preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, takes up a significant amount of time, effort and required focus upon gathering the necessary information, presenting the compelling facts and establishing the legal nexus between the medical conditions and the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal position.

In doing so, ruminations on the past need to be suspended; angst-ridden obsessions about the future will need to be ignored; and only the “present” focus will become the necessary standard. Ruminations on the past can come about sometime in the future; it is the present concern about past events that will be significant in securing one’s future by preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

The chronic life is the one that burdens; and, yet, does not all of life present a challenge of burdensome trials and persistent provocations? Or, are there elements within one’s life that makes it feel as if we are merely the donkey for others to place their weight upon, like those pack animals of yesteryears that always looked forlorn and ready to collapse?

Why do some appear “as if” they have not a care in the world, and flit about like in some ballet skipping and hopping, twirling and dancing from one scene into the next, never allowing for the concerns weighing upon like the rest of us? Is it merely born of attitude, or having a “positive” thought process; or, are some blocked by the concerns of life such that we are always infected with the chronicity of angst and worry?

The democratic manner of a medical condition seems always to be the one factor that is the exception. Medical conditions do not discriminate; they impact everyone in the same manner. Whether one is a carefree person, a worrier, a person who is serious, or who flits about life without a thought for consequences, the impact of a medical condition cannot be avoided.

There are those who live the chronic life – always meeting one’s obligations; always fulfilling promises; forever planning for the future; and then there are those “others” who seem to care not a twit about such matters. And yet, whether of the chronic life or of other-hood, when a medical condition begins to impact one’s health, the treatment and response is all the same: and, all the more so, when the medical condition becomes one that is termed “chronic”.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition has been deemed “chronic” in the sense that it will remain with the Federal or Postal worker for a minimum of 12 months, it is time to consider preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS offset.

It may well be that you have lived the chronic life, and that it is “unfair” given the seriousness of how you have lived your life. Nevertheless, it is the chronic nature of things in general, including the medical condition that now must be attended to, that will have to be dealt with.

But the advantage is this: those who have lived the chronic life often “deal” with the chronic matters of life with greater success, and perhaps that is the reason the Federal or Postal employee who has dedicated his or her service to the Federal Agency or the Postal Service has been well-prepared for this newest fight – against the medical condition – in this chronic of all matters: the medical condition itself.

There are those who make it their life’s goal not to have remorse for decisions made; but is that truly a worthwhile achievement? At the end of it all, is there a special space on the unwritten tombstone that lists the mistakes avoided, the embarrassments averted, and the admissions of deficiencies concealed? Is that not where much of Shakespearean web of deceits are constructed from – of attempting to cover up the insufficiencies otherwise already apparent in the foreboding appearances we attempt to portray?

Tenuously though we approach the daily chasms of darkened pitfalls menacingly threatening each day of our daily lives, we refuse to admit, fail to recognize or are too weak in the egocentric falsities of fragile souls to merely utter the simple words that allow for expiation of our weaknesses and quickly move on: “Sorry, I made a mistake”.

No, instead, the complex rationale, the justifications of convoluted sequences of condition precedents that fall upon the next as dominoes of perfectly aligned decoys; and the blame then shifts upon an eternal direction of fingers pointing one to the next, until there is no one left except for that proverbial last figure on the totem pole, who cares not because he or she is the runt forgotten or the brunt of everyone’s joke and display of pure human meanness.

But at what cost do we avoid admitting the mistakes we make? Of what layers of calluses formed, souls injured and responsibility averted, until the unquantifiable element becomes so saddled with a guilty conscience no longer able to feel, to be human, to rise above the bestiality of man’s base instincts?

The mistakes we make often harm another, but those we do not admit to, diminish the essence of who we are, what we are capable of, and always forestalls the capacity to grow.

As in any process that is complex, preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, can have a pathway full of difficult decisions and a complicated morass of complex legal precedents, statutory obstacles and sheer obstructions of meandering deliberations.

The mistakes we make can haunt us with consequences difficult to reverse, and in preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, it is one of the rare instances in which he who makes the fewest errors, likely will win. Mistakes in this area of law can range from the innocent and inadvertent, to the meandering blunders that lead to a denial from OPM. It is often not enough to avoid a mistake in preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application; indeed, it is the blatant mistakes we make without the guidance of wisdom and experience that determines the future course of events, as in life in general.

It is of evolutionary advantage for a healthy dose to allow; what amount, whether it can be quantified, and to what extent instinct should be restrained before intersecting rage and reactive violence meet, is a question, a puzzle and a conundrum. An animal in fear is both broken and dangerous, and the corollary of the two sides of a singular coin reveals the thin line between innate survival instincts which we attempt to linguistically describe, but are at a disadvantage precisely because words are ultimately inadequate in reflecting reality.

Tethering our fears is a lifelong process for everyone; the balance between healthy bridling and repressive dangers where outlets are disallowed but when expression of ignored or unattended trauma may erupt in later discourses of life and leniency of self, validates the delicacy of our sensitive natures. To be overbearing or detachedly impervious; to allow for expression beyond therapeutic value, or to blithely shut down all channels of thought and numbing emotions of eruptive tremblings of sobbing heaves; the tightrope of life leaves little room for error on either side of the equation.

We often speak in terms of “how much” and “what amount”, as if human frailty can be mixed in a crockpot of ingredients thrown by whim of recipe; a dash of solvent emotion here, a teaspoon of corrective stoicism over here. The reality of the situation is that fear rules most of us; we just never allow the untethering of it to be revealed too soon, for greater fear of being found out, like the emperor whose clothes we knew to not exist, but were too cowardly to admit, until the boldness of a child took the lead in shattering the facade of our own making.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, the emotion of fear is a known quantity. Little fiefdoms and feudal fares of power plays occur as daily soap operas unraveling despite the bureaucracy of rules, regulations and administrative forces of containment.

Then, when the Federal or Postal employee begins to suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to threaten and impact the Federal or Postal employee’s ability or capacity to perform all of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal positional duties, the fears which were once effectively tethered begin to uncoil, as future uncertainty and suspicion of motives in the unexplained actions of others and the agency whispers begin to foment those recesses of evolutionary cries for survival and rage.

Medical conditions tend to do that: they feed upon themselves, and exponentially magnify and exacerbate those very fears we were previously able to restrain, contain and maintain. It is important in the time of fear and untethering of emotions, to seek wise counsel and obtain some direction in preparing, formulating and filing for an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

For, in the end, fear untethered is like the pinnacle of the forgotten nightmare, when the abyss of sweat and trembling reaches a climax of unknown proportions, and when screams are no longer heard, pleas no longer considered, and the grace of angels flying beyond into the netherworld of residues where the golden dust of forgiveness is sprinkled afar.

Does modernity reflect progress? And, more to the point, by whose definition do we apply the standard of “progress”? Does mere movement or change constitute advancement, or do we fool ourselves by the proverbial content of shuffling the chairs on the deck of a sinking ship? Each generation believes fervently that the previous one represents an archaic mode of static thought and stale fashions, and that youth itself somehow supersedes the necessity for any generational transfer of wisdom or insight.

In former times, certain societies would offer the best and the beautiful as human sacrifice to the gods of fate, in order to please, appease and gain favor. In current times, we do the same, but cheat the gods by offering less than the healthy ones, and instead give to the winds of fate the decrepit, deteriorating and destroyed individuals who no longer contribute fully to society, thinking that by shedding ourselves of the rabble and remains of shorn vestiture, the favor of formidable fate will be attained for future payment in place of delayed gratification. Why is it that health and human sacrifice have become terms of mutual exclusivity?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, the Department of Health and Human Sacrifice has become the largest entity of bureaucratic morass, employing more people than all other agencies combined. It is the place where “health” is disregarded, and while lip service is paid to “accommodations” and those with disabilities, the reality of it is that such Federal and Postal workers are thrown down over the cliff as fodder for human sacrifice.

Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition no longer allows for fully embracing all of the essential elements of the positional duties required by the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, know well that the Department of Health and Human Sacrifice exists for them. Whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the relegation to this last bastion for infidels is the secret of modernity, kept in whispers where corridors of power and privacy prevail before being pushed down the chute of despair.

The only escape from such fated sacrifice is neither a replacement lamb nor a plan of refuge, but to prepare, formulate and file for an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. For, the Department of Health & Human Sacrifice was created under the guise of protecting the general public, when in fact its very existence is to advance the horrors as told by a generation of Orwellian drones; but, then, that is from a previous generation no longer relevant to current residents of modernity.

The story of Saul of Tarsus was the only true depiction of conversion, of the contrasting alteration of extremes on a spectrum of change; all others following, including Augustine’s Confessions, are mere exaggerations in order to rise to the level of profound comparison between the ‘before’ and the ‘after’. Such a generalization may be disputed, obviously; but isn’t it interesting how, in the tradition of that telling of the metamorphosis, so many religious leaders seem to feel that their own ‘personal story‘ of conversion needs to somehow compete with the original?

Thus, it is not enough to merely ‘have a conversion’; instead, one must have been the meanest, lowest, downtrodden ne’er-do-well who suddenly saw some figure or heard a voice and was struck by some unexplainable bolt of lightening, and it is in that tradition on the proverbial road to Damascus where the unparalleled universe of clashing phenomena must be described in greater details of incommensurate proportions which have seemingly competed for the attention of ages.

Why, instead, can it not be that a person simply reads The Good Book, mulls it over, and decides to change? Similarly, why must we always feel compelled to tell a ‘greater story’, as if the one that reflects reality is never enough to be persuasive in catching the attention of the reader?

In some cases, as in the one for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the proper understanding of the legal criteria must first be considered, before beginning the process of preparing an effective OPM Disability Retirement application.

For, if the Federal or Postal employee, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, mistakenly believes that the legal criteria is identical to the one required to obtain Federal OWCP benefits (it is not) or of Social Security Disability benefits (clearly not the same), then the very approach in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS may well reflect that misunderstanding.

Like the Road to Damascus, the true telling by Saul of Tarsus in the conversion experience which resulted in the Apostle Paul, the Federal and Postal employee who must experience the bureaucratic nightmare of changing from a Federal or Postal employee into a Federal Disability Retirement annuitant must tell the proper story which persuades OPM of the validity and viability of one’s case.

But in the telling, one should make sure that the contrast and comparison embraced is not like that of all of the subsequent historical copycats which misunderstood the point of the telling, but rather, the sufficiency of the true life experience of the Federal or Postal employee who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties.

For, in the end, one’s own personal story of challenge and triumph is the only one worth telling on that Road to Damascus, or in the case of the Federal or Postal employee filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM, on the pathway to Washington, D.C., with a waylay to Boyers, Pennsylvania, and before that, through the Human Resource Department, and before that…

Despite what they do, some find them to be elegance in flight; and whether the encounter is in the New World or Old, their bald heads mark them out to be the focus of fascination, repulsion and avoidance of shuddering whispers. Scavengers upon carrion of dead carcasses, the full display of their baldness and redness marks them for a discriminated species.

Evolutionary scientists note the advantage of the featherless appearance — of cleanliness in the act of wading deep into the putrid caverns of hollowed bodies and able to shake off the decaying infestation of harmful bacteria; while some in the minority have posited the age-old explanation of colorful display for attraction to the opposite sex and promotion of the genetic dominance of the handsomest. We humans may find them repulsive; within the species, perhaps there is an attraction unknown and undiscoverable, unable to be understood from the perspective of a different viewpoint.

Yet, we humans can understand the plight of the vulture; for we see them all over the place, as existentially pervasive as the world ’round. Like the soaring wingspan in the animal kingdom, vultures watch and wait in the world of men and women.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, their presence is everywhere, and frighteningly lacking in discreet patience. As empathy is not a character trait of the vulture in the animal kingdom, so it is lacking in the world of men and women. Thus, when a medical condition begins to impact the Federal or Postal employee’s ability and capacity to perform the essential elements of one’s positional duties within the Federal Sector or the U.S. Postal Service, the circling shadows of the ever-present scavengers from high above begin to circle the decaying carcass of the Federal or Postal employee whose progressive medical condition signals the decline and inevitable debilitation leading to absence and exit.

While the final chapter of each story may be different, the intent of the vulture of either species always remains constant — of circling, waiting, and watching with anticipation to swoop down upon the weakened and disadvantaged figure, when such bold presence would never have been displayed at the pinnacle of one’s power.

For the Federal and Postal employee weakened by a medical condition, preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is the road away from the inevitable circling of the awaiting scavengers. In the end, breeds of a pair tend to stick together, and vultures the world ’round — whether of the bird type or the animal kind — wait for the pickings to ripen in their state of decay.

Seven False Myths about OPM Disability Retirement

1) I have to be totally disabled to get Postal or Federal disability retirement.
False: You are eligible for disability retirement so long as you are unable to perform one or more of the essential elements of your job. Thus, it is a much lower standard of disability.

2) My injury or illness has to be job-related.
False: You can get disability even if your condition is not work related. If your medical condition impacts your ability to perform any of the core elements of your job, you are eligible, regardless of how or where your condition occurred.

3) I have to quit my federal job first to get disability.
False: In most cases, you can apply while continuing to work at your present job, to the extent you are able.

4) I can't get disability if I suffer from a mental or nervous condition.
False: If your condition affects your job performance, you can still qualify. Psychiatric conditions are treated no differently from physical conditions.

5) Disability retirement is approved by DOL Workers Comp.
False: It's the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) the federal agency that administers and approves disability for employees at the US Postal Service or other federal agencies.

6) I can wait for OPM disability retirement for many years after separation.
False: You only have one year from the date of separation from service - otherwise, you lose your right forever.

7) If I get disability retirement, I won't be able to apply for Scheduled Award (SA).
False: You can get a Scheduled Award under the rules of OWCP even after you get approved for OPM disability retirement.